CBI Life

   One day we went into Dacca. Like Calcutta it was poverty stricken, beggars everywhere. One woman tried to sell Earley and me her baby, which was nothing but skin and bones. We visited several shops looking for Pink Pearls, as this is the only place in the world that has Pink Pearls. We finally found a shop. It was just one room with a big mound of pearls in the middle of the room. The shop owner handed each of us a pair of tweezers and told us to pick out what we wanted. I wanted to buy Muriel enough to make her a set of ear rings and a cocktail ring. I picked out about 20, all about the same size, and asked him how much? He gave me a price I knew was too high, about 200 Rupees. We started "haggling" and I got him down to 30 Rupees, 10 dollars our money. I wrote Muriel that night and told her what I had bought. I could not tell her where I was, but suggested she could call a jeweler and ask him where Pink Pearls originated and she would know my location. I checked with Operations and we were getting awfully close to the 400 hour mark. We soon got orders to pack up; we were going back to Asonsol.

   Back on our old base the weather was pretty bad, so flying was only occasional. One day a squadron formation was called, another medal presentation deal. This time I was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal. The Distinguished Flying Cross added four bucks to my base salary. As there were no actual medals available, we were promised they would be officially presented back in the states. They were entered on our service records. One night, while playing poker I began feeling weak, starting sweating, and aching all over. I went to bed and when I awoke, I found myself in the hospital. A nurse was taking my temperature when I woke up. I asked her what happened? She said when they brought me in, four days previous, I had a temperature of a 105 degrees. They had packed me in ice and slowly my temperature began to come down. The doctor had explained they had lost a few patients with brain Malaria and thought at first that was my condition. Thank God it wasn't, mine was just plain Malaria.

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Men of the 7th Bomb Group